This invention relates generally to the preparation and packaging of shirts, blouses and like articles for presentation and sale to the public. For simplicity, hereinafter, such articles will be referred to generically as shirts.
Traditionally, shirts, particularly dress shirts, are packed individually in flat rectangular plastic or like bags. For attractive and tidy presentation, each shirt is folded into rectangular form on a sheet of lightweight flexible board known as a shirt board, often with tissue paper included, and the shirt collar is supported by an associated collar board interposed between the collar and the collar band, frequently with additional collar stays and supports at the front of the collar. To maintain the integrity of the folded shirt package, mechanical fasteners such as pins or clips are normally used. The shirt folding, fastening and packaging operation is a complex one, performed manually, and involving a number of different steps, considerable skill, experience, and hand-eye coordination if it is to be carried out at an economical rate in modern day shirt factory production. Moreover, the subsequent unpackaging of the shirt by a consumer is also somewhat time consuming, involving, inter alia, the location and removal of all the pins and/or clips, and the precise location and number of these may vary somewhat from manufacturer to manufacturer. Also, disadvantages are apparent in the use of pins, noteably their propensity to cause pinpricks both to a packaging operative and to the consumer, and the formation of holes in the shirt. While the use of clips may obviate these disadvantages to an extent, they may not be as secure or as rapidly applied as pins.